T-Mobile copies Apple to get at Apple

Oh, look. It's Justin Long in a skirt. And with lipstick.

In a strangely aggressive new campaign, one that suggests that the company has the largest 4G network, T-Mobile has decided to wear the clothes of Apple's recently deceased "Get a Mac" campaign in order to kick AT&T (and Apple) in its nether regions.

I had always thought of T-Mobile as the brand that represented families in which depressed fathers had trouble controlling their offspring. But here is the company making bold, manly declarations about having a vaster 4G network than anyone else.

Reid Walker, T-Mobile's vice president of communications, explained to TechFlash: "If you look at how consumers are viewing 4G, it's all about speed. When they see some of the current claims out there, they believe they're getting the fastest phone on the market, which is not always the case, as you look at some of the competitive analysis in the market."

Apparently, T-Mobile has an HPSA+ network, which is far finer and faster than, say, Sprint's Clearwire WiMax affair. Apparently. But I would defy you to find anyone with a brain and no feet in the swamp of tech who could explain to you what 4G truly represents. Other than some vague notion of speed.

Apparently the International Telecommunications Union recently declared that WiMax and LTE aren't really 4G. But who on earth (the real earth) is following this wonderfully arcane debate? Isn't everyone too busy checking Facebook on their iPhones?

So T-Mobile has decided to use the structure of an Apple ad to take a swipe not at Sprint, but at AT&T. And, therefore, implicitly at Apple.

We see a girl in a stripey dress trying to be a cross between Justin Long and former T-Mobile spokesperson Catherine Zeta-Jones. She explains something slightly technical about video chat and offers that her myTouch 4G is far better than an iPhone 4 because an iPhone 4 has an old bald AT&T person on its back.

This old bald person looks nothing like John Hodgman's alleged Bill Gates. But there will be those who will wonder whether this largely hairless dude bears a strangely irrelevant resemblance to Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.

I ask everyone out there, because I find myself wallowing in confusion: will anyone get this? Will anyone care? Will everyone rush out to hook up with T-Mobile? I also ask myself: if you're going to give Apple a hard time, why would you mimic their rather beloved ads? Oh, I get it. Because that will be more memorable. 

by Chris Matyszczyk

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Android phones outsell iPhone 2-to-1, says research firm

Google's OS powers 44% of smartphones sold in U.S. last quarter; Apple's iOS far behind

Android-powered smartphones outsold iPhones in the U.S. by almost 2-to-1 in the third quarter, a research firm said today.

Analysts explained the Android boom by pointing out the plethora of manufacturers that equip their smartphones with Google's mobile operating system, and highlighting their availability on all the major U.S. carriers.

"We started to see Android take off in 2009 when Verizon added the [Motorola] Droid," said Ross Rubin, the executive director of industry analysis for the NPD Group. "A big part of Android success is its carrier distribution. Once it got to the Verizon and Sprint customer bases, with their mature 3G networks, that's when we started to see it take off."

According to NPD's surveys of U.S. retailers, Android phones accounted for 44% of all consumer smartphone sales in the third quarter, an increase of 11 percentage points over 2010's second quarter. Meanwhile, Apple's iOS, which powers the iPhone, was up one point to 23%.

Research in Motion's (RIM) portion of the smartphone pie was 22% for the third quarter, down six percentage points from 2010's second quarter.

RIM's decline is easy to explain, said Rubin. "That's also related to the carrier distribution, which is difficult to underestimate," he said, noting that the carriers that now sell loads of Android phones are the same ones that have traditionally been major suppliers of RIM's BlackBerry.

RIM introduced its newest smartphone, theBlackBerry Torch 9800, in August. The handset is available only through AT&T, the U.S. carrier that also has an exclusive deal with Apple to sell theiPhone.

"That's why the Torch at AT&T isn't doing much to hold back the Android onslaught," Rubin said. "It's only on AT&T."

Kevin Restivo, an analyst with IDC, echoed Rubin's reasoning for Android's surge. "It's the collective growth in sales of HTC and Motorola," he said.

The trend has been building throughout the first half of the year, both Restivo and Rubin said.

In the first six months of 2010, Android accounted for 30.8% of all smartphone sales in the U.S., up from just 4.6% in the first half of the year before, said Restivo, citing IDC data. Apple's iOS, on the other hand, slipped from 21.1% in the first half of 2009 to 19.8% in the first six months of 2010.

RIM's sales share plummeted during the same period, falling from 51.4% in 2009 to 35.5% this year.

"Android has made its mark on the smartphone market, irrespective of what quarter we're talking about in 2010," said Restivo. IDC has not yet compiled its third-quarter sales estimates by operating system.

Apple will have a tough time matching Android smartphone sales until it breaks free of the exclusive partnership with AT&T, Rubin argued. "It's difficult for them to compete in market share leadership with just one carrier," he said.

Rumors that Apple will soon offer the iPhone to other U.S. carriers, primarily Verizon, pop up on a regular basis. Last month, the Wall Street Journalreported that Apple would add Verizon to its U.S. carrier stable early next year, a timeline that Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co. said his sources confirmed.

Rubin offered another reason for Android's strong sales.

"The story for Android in 2010 is that, for most manufacturers and carriers, there really hasn't been any alternative," Rubin said. Microsoft's Windows Mobile faded badly this year, and its Windows Phone 7 has yet to appear on handsets in the U.S. And AT&T has Apple's iOS locked up for now. That left Android as the default OS for what Rubin called "modern" smartphones.

"Multiple manufacturers [with Android phones] provide more consumer choice in the marketplace," said Rubin.

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Google Claims U.S. Excluded It From Contract

V.S 

SAN FRANCISCO — Google is suing the Interior Department, claiming it considered only Microsoft products and not Google Apps when buying e-mail and collaboration software for its 88,000 employees.

The suit, filed Friday in the United States Court of Federal Claims by Google, contends that by considering only Microsoft products, the government was “unduly restrictive of competition.” The suit said the department violated the Competition in Contracting Act, which requires such bidding to be competitive.

Google is searching for its second act beyond search, including with applications that compete with Microsoft’s word processing, spreadsheet, e-mail and other office productivity products.

In the suit, Google describes many instances in which it tried to pitch its tools to the Interior Department, but says that the government ultimately limited the contract, which is worth up to $59.3 million, so only Microsoft products were considered.

Google seeks to block the department from buying any of the software until it allows competitive bidding.

Google Apps are cloud-based tools, meaning that people use the software through the Web. In September, Google said 30 million people at businesses, schools and other organizations used Google Apps. It is making only a small dent in Microsoft’s sales of Office software.

Some organizations have raised concerns about the security and reliability of Web-based software. In July, Google introduced Google Apps for government, which pass federal security standards and ensure that government e-mail and calendar data is stored only on servers in the United States.

Governments including the State of Wyoming and the city of Los Angeles use Google Apps. “In cases like Los Angeles and Wyoming, those were open and competitive bid processes and we beat Microsoft fair and square, and taxpayers have saved millions of dollars along the way,” said Andrew Kovacs, a Google spokesman. He declined to comment on the lawsuit specifically.

Microsoft, which last week won a major software contract from New York City, declined to comment. Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, also declined to comment.

BY CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

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Blekko: The Newest Search Engine

Yes, Google is great, but Blekko, which relies on human input, may be better.

Blekko.com, a new search engine that uses human input to help it sort out the world, is getting a lot of press today, including a lot of "Another search engine, who needs it? Google is better." send-offs. Yes, Google is the greatest search engine as of now, but that doesn't mean it cannot be beaten by some new algorithm or a better idea. Blekko is going for a better idea.

Blekko, in fact, adds so much weird dimensionality that out of all the recently hyped search engine ideas, such as www.cuil.com, I find it the most interesting. I do not say this often.

The first thing I do, of course, with a new engine is search for myself. I do not do this because I'm vain, but because I know exactly what should appear and in what order. Most writers, like myself, with a high-profile on the Internet use this same trick to see if a search engine is any good. Blekko nails the search. When I search for myself, one of the following items should appear at the top of the search: my blog at dvorak.org/blog and channeldvorak.com. After that, I expect to see links to my short bio, my wiki entry, PCMag, Mevio, Marketwatch, NoAgendashow, or other newer sites where I'm active. Google nails this every time. Yahoo always used to screw it up completely. Bing mostly nails it except for adding oddball links that have nothing to do with me. Most low-budget wannabees just make a mess with old links that have lingered for a decade.

Anyway, after it passed the initial screening, I tried to put it to work. Unlike other search engines, Blekko has added these odd little sublinks right under the link title to tag, seo, links, cache, ip, chatter, and spam.

Breakdown:

Tag – While this is nothing that Google cannot copy, it would be interesting to see if it actually does copy the idea. The tag link allows registered users of the system to add important tags that may apply to the site. This would be useful for future site users, but has the potential to be abused by both users and site owners. We'll see how far it gets.

SEO – This is fabulous information for site owners. It's essentially search-engine optimization information like ranking, inbound links, crawl stats, and more. You can compare sites and have a lot of time-wasting fun. Fantastic.

Links – This is a listing of the main sites that link to the page. Amusing.

Cache – This is a cache of the site which is useful if the site goes down. Google has already made this an important feature. It takes boatloads of computers to do this right.

IP – This shows the IP address under which the site is operating. When you click on it, you see other sites which use the same IP. This is a real eye-opener, to say the least.

Chatter – This seems to be a Twitter-like feature that allows you to tell others what you are up to regarding the site you are visiting.

Spam – This allows logged-in users to tag a site as spam. This would help eliminate many of the commercial sites that clog up search results. But it could also be abused. We'll see how this works out.

And tools hidden from view, which I expect to appear as additional features, are: dup, which shows duplicate content on the site; rss, which takes you directly to the RSS feed; site, which gives a site search; and similar, which shows similar sites. All of these seem to be useful and direct tools.

By: John C. Dvorak

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Facebook Says Data Broker Bought User IDs

Facebook on Friday said that an unspecified data broker had been paying Facebook developers for user identification numbers (UIDs) and that it has suspended a number of Facebook developers -- less than a dozen -- for six months as punishment.

The company said that no private user data had been sold -- Facebook does not consider UIDs to be private even though they can be used to track individual users -- and it said that the UIDs transferred were not used to access private data.

"Facebook has never sold and will never sell user information," said Facebook engineer Mike Vernal in a blog post. "We also have zero tolerance for data brokers because they undermine the value that users have come to expect from Facebook."

Facebook does not have to sell user information since most Facebook users give their information away to Facebook developers when they choose to use Facebook applications.


Facebook did not name the data broker that had paid for UIDs, but Vernal's blog post said that the company had also reached an agreement with RapLeaf, "the data broker who came forward to work with us on this situation." As part of the agreement, RapLeaf will delete UIDs in its possession and refrain from future activities involving Facebook, directly or indirectly.

The acknowledgement comes following a Wall Street Journal investigation last month that found popular Facebook apps revealed UID numbers. UID numbers can be used to determine a Facebook user's name and possibly other information. The principal privacy risk is that UIDs can be used to associate a Facebook identity with actions outside of Facebook.

In response to that investigation, Facebook put forward a plan to enable the optional encryption of UID numbers. The company has published a technical outline and solicited feedback from developers. It maintains that the additional issue of information exposed through HTTP Referer headers must be addressed by a broad range of technology companies.

The company also said that it is tightening its policies about how UIDs can be used, stored, and transmitted.

By Thomas Claburn

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Discovery gets green light for launch Wednesday

Discovery gets green light for launch Wednesday

Space shuttle Discovery and six astronauts got a green light today for the planned launch Wednesday of the fleet leader's final flight, an International Space Station outfitting mission.

The 18-story spaceship and its crew remain scheduled to blast off from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A at 3:52 p.m. ET Wednesday, the middle of a 10-minute opportunity to set sail for the international outpost.

"Right now we're not tracking any issues that would prevent launch," said NASA Shuttle Launch Director Mike Leinbach. "Nothing that's going to hold us up."

The weather forecast for Wednesday looks good. Kathy Winters, shuttle weather officer with the U.S. Air Force's 45th Space Wing Weather Squadron, said there is a 70% chance conditions will be acceptable for launch. The only concerns are the possibility of low-level clouds or rain showers within 20 nautical miles of the Shuttle Landing Facility.

The weather on Thursday is expected degrade on Thursday. A cold front is expected to sweep over theFlorida peninsula, bringing a chance of low-level clouds, showers and possibly isolated thunderstorms into the Cape Canaveral area.


NASA flight rules prohibit launching when low-level clouds might obscure the view of the three-mile shuttle runway in the unlikely event of an emergency landing. Rain showers could damage the orbiter's fragile heat-shield tiles, and thunderstorms could trigger destructive bolts of lightning in flight.

The front is expected to pass through the area Thursday evening and the weather for Friday is expected to be better. There is a 70% chance of acceptable weather on Friday.

NASA must launch the shuttle by Nov. 7 or delay the flight until a short opportunity in early December. A new NASA analysis shows the agency might be able to make an attempt on Nov. 8. But as it stands, the sun angle on the station between Nov. 8 and Nov. 23 will be such that the outpost could not generate enough electricity or dispel enough heat to support a docked shuttle. Then a Soyuz crew is scheduled to depart the station on Nov. 29, leaving just three people onboard the outpost.

So the next opportunity would be Dec. 1 through Dec. 5. However, the Discovery mission includes several sortie science experiments that are to be performed on the station and then returned to Earth on Discovery. With only three station crewmates onboard the outpost, it's questionable whether the experiments could be carried out.

Traffic at the station then picks up with the arrivals of two Russian progress cargo carriers and space freighters from Europe and Japan. The next shuttle launch opportunity, as a result, would be Feb. 27, currently the launch date for the last flight of Endeavour.

By Todd Halvorson,

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Xbox Kinect To Crush PlayStation Move?

When it comes to the advanced controller wars, Microsoft's Xbox Kinect system could outsell Sony's PlayStation Move by a considerable margin in the crucial, holiday shopping season, according to a market watcher.

IDC, in a study released Monday, predicted Microsoft will sell between 2.5 million and 3 million Kinect sensors for Xbox 360 in the fourth quarter. IDC expects Sony to sell between 2 million and 2.25 million PlayStation move systems.

PlayStation Move allows gamers to interact with on-screen action through a handheld wand equipped with special sensors, while Kinect allows users to play completely hands free.

"While it doesn't appear Kinect or Move will be this year's Tickle Me Elmo, millions of additional U.S. households will be enjoying motion-based gaming this holiday season," said Lewis Ward, research manager for IDC's video game industry advisory service, in a statement.

Sony released the Move system late last month, and is offering a bundle that includes Sports Champions and the PlayStation Eye camera for $99.

Microsoft recently unveiled a slew of games for Xbox Kinect that will debut when the system launches on Thursday. The most high-profile title on the list is "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1 The Videogame." From Electronic Arts, the $49.99 game gives players the chance to assume the character of the famous boy wizard.

Also launching on or around Kinect's Nov. 4 release date are Kinectimals (Frontier Studios), which lets players interact with on screen zoo animals, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved (Ubisoft), which provides exercise routines with the help of a virtual, on-screen trainer, and Kinect Sports (Rare), which lets users play simulated soccer, bowling, volleyball, and other games.

Kinect Joy Ride (Big Park) is billed as the world's first hands-free racing game, and Dance Central (MTV Games) allows players to groove to tunes by artists like Lady Gaga, No Doubt, M.I.A., and more.

Microsoft plans to introduce a $299 Kinect bundle that includes a new, slimmed down 4GB Xbox 360 console equipped with the Kinect sensor bar. The package also features Kinect Adventures, an exploration game designed to take full advantage of the Kinect technology. The company also is offering a $399 bundle that features a 250GB console with Kinect and the Kinect Adventures game.

Additionally, Microsoft will make the Kinect sensor bar available as an add-on for existing Xbox 360 consoles, at a price of $149, including Kinect Adventures.

The Kinect bar features a camera, audio sensors, and motion-sensing technology that tracks 48 points of movement on the human body. That means players can control on-screen action simply through physical gestures and verbal commands. The sensor bar is designed to plug directly into the Xbox 360 console

.By Paul McDougall ,

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